


The Jack and Ennis of Scranton...Minus the Tragedy, Add Pizza

by jesshelga



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Movie Night, Spoilers for Brokeback Mountain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-20
Updated: 2008-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesshelga/pseuds/jesshelga
Summary: Please enjoy this time capsule from 2008. Oh how young and innocent we all were then...A brodate, "Brokeback Mountain," and a bromance...that eventually drops the "B." Co-authoring by anxietygrrl, who e-mailed me not long after I started joking about this premise and said: I was thinking about your 'Oscar and Andy watch Brokeback' scenario. And I just pictured Andy all snotty and red-faced and full of righteous, sobbing rage about "SOCIETY!" and "RODEOS!" and "ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS!"Hee. It was so funny that I pretty much plagiarized left it intact.
Relationships: Oscar/Andy, The Office - Relationship
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	The Jack and Ennis of Scranton...Minus the Tragedy, Add Pizza

_”I've this crazy old notion that calls me sometimes  
Saying this one's the love of our lives.”_  
\--Emmylou Harris, “A Love That Will Never Grow Old”

It started out innocently enough. Or as innocently as a scenario wherein Andy lured him into the break room with a very unsubtle “Wingman conference in five” gritted at him at the copier could.

“We can’t _both_ be wing…”

“You know what I mean, Oscar de la Renta.”

Oscar did. He did know what Andy meant, he supposed.

So he met Andy in the break room.

* * *

  
“Sooooooooo, my _lady_ is going on some church overnight tonight, and I’ve got the bachelor pad all to myself…”

“Don’t you _always_ have your apartment to yourself, since Angela doesn’t live there?”

Andy stared at him a moment, then continued, “ _Anywho,_ I thought maybe we could have a bro night, a bro date, a broooomantical evening.”

Oscar sighed, even though his fingers had begun to tingle. “What were you thinking about?”

“You know, beers, nachos, maybe a flick or two.” He checked both doors into the break room very, very seriously, then leaned forward, dropped his voice to a near-whisper, and said, “I’ve never seen _Brokeback Mountain_.”

Oscar took a breath. Then closed his mouth.

“ _Brokeback Mountain_. That’s what you want to watch on a…bro…date?”

“Well, you know, I figured _you_ had a copy…”

“Because I’m gay.”

“Righty-o. And Angela has eeiiiiissues with that sort of thing.”

“You don’t say.”

“I thought it would be a way to compromise. Beer me; Heath you. You know?!”

What else were you going to do Friday, Oscar, he asked himself. Watch _Ghost Whisperer_ with no one to make fun of Jennifer Love Hewitt? Clean the stovetop for the second time this month? Look at profiles at chemistry.com but refuse to sign in to his own account?

“Sure. That’d be… okay.”

“Come on, Oscar the Grouch! Get excited! It’s going to be legen—“

“I watch _How I Met Your Mother_ , Andy.”

“Right, right.” Andy tapped his nose. “Neil Patrick Harris. Looked great on the cover of _Advocate._ Leather jacket.” Punctuating that puzzling bit of knowledge with a sunny smile, Andy Bernard returned to work.

* * *

  
Oscar insisted, quite strongly, that they host "bro-date" at his house, not in Andy's sad bachelor apartment, where Angela had hung up several kitten and/or baby calendars. Andy did not bring the accoutrement to make nachos. Instead, he brought a pizza from the new, fancy place near Panera that had a delicious whole-wheat crust.

“Wow, Andy. And extra green peppers. That’s great.”

“A bro notices another bro’s topping preferences.”

Oscar let this particular falsehood pass and instead picked up and held onto his copy of _Brokeback_ nervously. “Andy, you know this movie has...”

“Guy sex?”

“Well, yeah, that too, but also…it’s not what you’d call a _happy_ or _action-packed_ film. Gil said…”

“Aw, boo! No mentioning the significant others on bro-date.”

Oscar nodded, did not mention the break-up, nor did he mention that Gil’s pro- _Crash_ stance during the Oscars led to several very loud arguments, which seemed important for a reason he couldn’t define.

“I’m serious, Andy. It’s very, very, _very_ sad. We can get _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ from pay-per-view.”

“No! Come on! Bonding!” That was it. Well, besides the beaming smile that made Oscar feel like he was looking into the sun a little bit.

Oscar sighed, then got out plates for the pizza.

* * *

  
He’d reached a point where the score no longer made him have to hide in the bathroom to sob into one of the guest towels, but Oscar still felt that tightness in his chest that suggested the plush comfort of microcotton wasn’t far away. He concentrated on eating his pizza and ignoring how much delighted comfort he took in what a quiet movie companion Andy was.

Andy’s hand was inches away. Oscar was taking delighted comfort in that too. Not that he would take Andy’s hand. Just that it was there.

Andy seemed to be doing okay up until Jack and Ennis parted ways. Then he reached for a throw pillow.

“We can stop, Andy.” Oscar looked, concerned, from the pizza slice with two bites on a plate long abandoned to the coffee table, then to Andy’s face, transfixed in a quiet, mournful, confused expression. “Really.”

After several seconds, Andy turned to him. “Pfft, what?” he exclaimed weakly. Then, more seriously, “No. No, we can’t stop. It’ll get better. Right?”

Oscar picked up the dishes and went into the kitchen. He took as much time as possible rinsing them, running the disposal, and testing one of the kitchen towels for sound absorbency.

* * *

  
When the letter with the “deceased” stamp arrived, Oscar felt prepared.

He _felt_ prepared.

Andy’s crying was quiet at first, so Oscar tried to do the guy thing wherein he ignored it, hoping desperately that it would go away if it was unacknowledged.

But then Andy doubled over, sort of like an eight-year-old with a stomachache. Or a thirtysomething who had been emotionally devastated by Heath Ledger hugging a long-lost shirt.

He leaned over a bit and quietly said, “I tried to tell you…”

That was all it took. Andy vigorously threw himself into Oscar’s chest, gripping him tight around the neck. There was nothing to do but rub his back consoling while Andy sobbed, occasionally blurting words like “society” and “nice farm in Vermont” and something about “alumni associations” that was a little baffling.

Oscar murmured, “I know, I know,” glad Andy had managed to miss the devastating regret of an aged Ennis standing in his tiny doorway, looking out into what could have been.

Eventually, Andy’s sobs began to segue into labored, fatigued inhalations and shaky exhalations. Finally, he stirred from Oscar’s shirt front, lifting his head with the wobbly energy of a newborn.

When Oscar looked at Andy Bernard’s face, all he could see was the cherubic and faultless Boy Scouts of the Norman Rockwell _Saturday Evening Post_ covers: shiny and angelic, with a smudge of pink from cheek to cheek. Even the way his lashes were semi-glued with tears was something out of the 1950s…maybe a Douglas Sirk film, but still.

Oscar hadn’t meant to put his hands on either side of Andy’s face. He would have sworn to it. It just sort of _happened._ And it must have been the nostalgia, the way Andy’s wounded sentimentality reminded him of the way his mother cradled him when he was a very young boy, that made him whisper, _“Mi hijo,”_ while drying Andy’s face with his shirt sleeve.

But the way Andy’s hand settled, a little shaky but still firm on Oscar’s upper thigh, and the brilliant blue eye contact while Oscar leaned a little closer to swab the tears from Andy’s earlobe…

Oscar meant it when he kissed Andy. That was not accidental.

He even kept kissing Andy when Andy, echoing Oscar’s gentle endearment, murmured, _”La Isla Bonita.”_

* * *

  
Much later, in the bedroom, situating themselves amongst the sheets and the comforter, distributing pillows and returning errant article of clothings, Oscar looked at Andy and said, “ _La Isla Bonita_ means ‘The beautiful island.’”

Andy seemed to consider putting on his Cornell face, the one that would claim to know everything, to have spent time with Here Comes Treble in Acapulco during spring break…but it disappeared after a moment or two. “I took German,” he shrugged. “But I _majored_ in _True Blue._ ”

“Well, I was going to say that you could talk to Dwight, but…”

The rest of Oscar’s intended punchline about how he was sure Dwight hadn’t liked _Swept Away_ because of the unrealistic portrayal of shipwreck survival was drowned out as Andy bludgeoned him with a pillow for a few moments while semi-shouting “Ugh! Dwight! Gross!”

Then, 15 minutes later or so, a little tangled up in each other, Andy said, very seriously, “Oscar, I want you to know…that it wasn’t my first time seeing _Brokeback Mountain_ …if you know what I’m saying.”

And Oscar laughed. Laughed harder than he’d laughed in months. “Yeah, Andy. Yeah, I figured.”


End file.
